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I’m hunting you Zizek, not to shoot you but to impound you, to pen you in a zoo, as the last extinct exotic species of neo-Marxism’s bankruptcy, for display, to your admirers, the nipple-fed intellectuals, whom Lenin dubbed “useful idiots”, to be used, and I would add, in a Leninist useless philosophy. You are the Lehman Brothers of Philosophy. Easy come, easy go.

Unlike Einstein’s God who doesn’t play dice, you on the contrary, play dice with your Marxist philosophy. On one throw of the dice you stake millions of lives on your aleatory experiment of creating the perfect Communist society. To quote you from your book …Lost Causes, “Better a disaster of fidelity to the Event than a non-being of indifference towards the Event”. Thus the logic of this sentence is that either fidelity or indifference to the Event has an equal chance of being realised. Moreover, the indifferent would be truly in a state of “non-being”, as they would be ‘pogrommed’, eliminated by the faithful.Marxism is a tragic replay of the Spanish Inquisition. And you are its modern Grand Inquisitor. Indeed, Zizek, you are the “imperial wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan. (Not to speak of your colossal revisionism of Marxism; that the establishment of the Communist society is within the DNA of history and inevitable, the outcome of a natural law—nothing serendipitous about its materialisation– as depicted by its great founder.)

The hard crucial choice for Americans: Triumph with an indomitably strong leadership or fail with a weak one.

“Great men have always done well, when they made use of their power before their enemies reached a position where they could tie their hands and destroy their power.” (Frederick The Great).

By Con George-Kotzabasis October 10, 2017

It is not the last time that in critical times, unexpectedly, men of gigantic ability, will-power, moral strength, and celerity in decisiveness emerge phoenix–like and take in their firm hands the reins of power to save their countries from dangers that threaten their existence. And certainly such men are out of the normal mould and crash against the conventional establishment that often makes them its bete noire. It is precisely this “unexpectedness,” especially in a climate of political correctness, that dumbfounds a sizeable part of the intelligentsia, that an outsider out of their own clan has the chutzpah and audaciousness to gate crash “their” political turf.

Such an outsider is ostensibly clear, is Donald Trump, whose entry into the oval office has shocked and appalled the liberal intelligentsia and a great part of the media that embodies and expresses their views and opinions. That the Fourth Estate and its liberal patrons have reacted against this out-of-the-norm new president with such unprecedented vehemence, using the ignoble and sordid means of vilification, defamation, lies, “fake news,” and sinister conspiracies, reveals that the opposition against President Trump will be vigorous, durational and unendingly dirty.

The democratic liberals, accustomed to having weak presidents who could be easily manoeuvred to adopt their own policies through the corridors of power, are dismayed and anguished that before a relentlessly strong president, such as Trump, they would lose the power to formulate the political agenda of the country. Up till now, “munching” happily on the weak “pop-corn presidency” of Barak Obama, and his two similarly weak predecessors, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, who had adopted and implemented all the economic, political, and moral tenets of the liberals that, according to the latter, had broken the backbone of an imperial America, they now feel threatened that with the Trump administration, they will lose the influence to determine the course of the country, and more widely, of the world. By being swept out of commandeering the ship of state, that the changing tempestuous winds of the Trump administration has brought on the political “seascape,” and the terrifying event of being sunk into the depths of oceanic oblivion, the liberal leftist intelligentsia, its media cohorts, and the politically immature young of the drop-outs and others of academe–who are used as storm-troopers of the left–are reacting with inordinate vituperation against the president. Hence, the liberal establishment is releasing all its viperous furies against Donald Trump; and in this ferocious attack against this “dangerous outsider,” they will not hesitate to use all the fiendish and vile means to remove him from the White House.

The attacks on all the policies of President Trump since taking office by this condominium of liberals and the mass media, evince, that this fight will take no prisoners and will triumph only on the cadaver of the president. His critics are even prepared to sacrifice policies that would make America stronger and safer on the altar of their righteousness. Their repudiation of the “travel ban” on countries that breed terrorists; their criticism of the President’s stand toward Europe and NATO, wherein the Europeans should share a greater part of the costs of the continent’s security and should not continue to depend on American largesse; their condemnation of his withdrawal from the Paris agreement on CO2 emissions, on the reasonable grounds that such an agreement would lead with certainty to the loss of jobs contra the uncertainty of perilous climate change; their assertion that during the election campaign Trump colluded with the Russians with the purpose to win the election, despite the fact that the court found no collusion; and their latest attempt to charge the president with obstruction of justice in regard to the investigation of the dismissal of the director of the FBI. All these censures of his detractors, even if they are found to be legal chicanery (The Supreme Court has fully justified President Trump on his “travel ban” by reversing the lower court’s decision and hence making it legal and hence exonerate the president from any impeachment), have the aim of generating such a mountainous negative public opinion against President Trump that would oust him from the oval office.

Nonetheless Atlas, the creative individualistic dynamism of the United States, is not to be “Shrugged”, under the strong and savvy leadership of President Trump. In appointing to key positions of his administration the strongest and the brightest, picking them exclusively from the most robust institution of the country, i.e., the armed forces of the USA, the president is determined to place America on a new course as the guardian of Western values and as the protector of civilized life against all implacable enemies who pose an existential threat to it. And just as importantly, President Trump “knows thy enemy,” the Islamist fanatics whose godly-agenda is to destroy the “great Satan” America and all the other transcontinental infidels. Moreover, he is aware that this enemy is irreconcilable and cannot be appeased by any change in the foreign policy of the USA that would apparently be favourable to this enemy. On the contrary, it would consider such a change as weakness on the part of the USA.

Such an enemy not only has to be defeated but also annihilated on the battlefield. This is the reason why President Trump has pointed his focus on his military personnel and placed generals James Mattis, John Kelly, and Herbert McMaster, as Secretary of Defence, Chief-of-Staff, and National Security Advisor, respectively. This will be a military and militant Administration, especially, as apparently anticipated by Trump, in light of the possibility that weapons of mass destruction or even nuclear ones could strike America. With the possibility of such an attack the president will have to declare a state of martial law, to defend America not only against an external enemy but also against an internal one, due to the large number of Muslims living in the country amongst whom there is a sizeable part of Islamist Jihadists who would be willing martyrs to the destruction of the United States. In such circumstances, ordinary laws will have to be suspended and replaced by an active military dictatorship, under the orders of the president, as only the latter will be effective in protecting the country from this deadly internal enemy.

Already a dress rehearsal of the new vital role that the military is going to play in this war against the Islamists or any other foe (as is shown by the threat of North Korea) is illustrated by President Trump’s speech on the war in Afghanistan a month ago. After mulling over on his initial stand to withdraw US military forces from Afghanistan he admitted, that he was finally persuaded by his military advisors to abandon this position and on the contrary to increase the US expeditionary force in its fight against the Taliban. And he made it clear, apparently again on the advice of his military councillors, that the pre-eminent role in this war would be played by military professionals.

In his speech, he sketched a radical transformation in the military strategy of the USA that no previous president dared to think, and least of all practice. He declared, that national building is over and there will be no micro-management of the war from Washington. The military will determine the strategy to win the war and conditions on the ground will determine US strategy, no arbitrary timetables made on the golf course of Washington a la Obama.

The Great Threat of North Korea

The nuclear-rattling of Kim Jong-un and his portentous tongue-in-cheek threats that he is making against the USA, are not going to be taken lightly by President Trump. If these threats are not to be consummated in the immediate future they will remain imminent for the near future. That is why the Trump Administration will not risk such a possible nuclear attack by North Korea and will have to resort to a massive overwhelming pre-emptive nuclear attack against the latter and totally destroy its capability to launch even one nuclear missile against the USA. It will be a pre-emptive strike that will end the war before it starts; unlike the Australian strategic analyst David Kilcullen, who is concerned about the great danger that it will be an exchange of nuclear missiles by the warring parties. US strategists will ensure, with algorithmic precision, that no such exchange will occur. And if it does, the missiles of North Korea will be destroyed in mid air.

In circumstances where a nation faces an existential threat, as America is, humane sentiments toward a deadly foe take a back seat. North Korea can avoid such an annihilating nuclear attack by the United States only if it completely dismantles all of its nuclear developmental facilities, under the meticulous observation of a United Nations agency that will make absolutely sure that these facilities are clearly destroyed, with no possibility of their clandestine restoration in the future. The question is whether this toddler leader of N. Korea will abandon playing with his nuclear toys and will abide with the demands of the United Nations to destroy them.

Another great concern of the Trump Administration is the flawed agreement that his predecessor Obama clinched with the Islamists of Iran, in order to prevent the latter from acquiring nuclear weapons. This agreement has so many holes through which the mullahs can wriggle through and ultimately produce a nuclear bomb. It is for this reason that President Trump wants to revise this agreement that will render the Americans with a rigorous surveillance by which they will make sure that the Iranians will be totally deprived of the capacity to secretly develop a nuclear bomb.

President Trump’s awareness and astuteness in discerning the above dangers that threaten the existence of Western Civilization perforce put his presidency at the Archimedean point that will move the world in a new direction. Under his strong leadership and administration he will confront and annihilate these satanic forces, whose goal is to destroy all infidels and their economic, political, scientific, and social achievements. President Trump, by strengthening the USA and forging a new international peaceful order will guarantee the economic prosperity of all nations and peoples, who steadfastly affirm the liberal tenets of the free market and who are engaged in creating the institutions and business enterprises that will fulfil this laudable goal.

I’ve “excavated” this essay of mine from the deep-end of my archive in view of the Construction Forestry Mines Energy Union’s, CFMEU, threatening decision to publish the names and addresses of building watchdog inspectors with the aim that their “kids will be ashamed of who their parents are.” This union as king-maker, whose power is unparalleled in the industrial history of the country, which can crown and dethrone leaders of the Labor Party, as it did by appointing Bill Shorten as the federal leader of the ALP, has not the slightest concern that by naming the families of these inspectors puts at high risk the safety of their spouses and children. Moreover, its impending amalgamation with another militant union, the Marine Union of Australia, MEU, will make the CFMEU the power-broker extraordinaire. And increase more its forte to continue to break the rules and regulations of the Industrial Court with total impunity. I hope the readers of this blog will find it to be of a bit of an interest.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The following essay was written on April 2000. It’s republished here on this blog as I think it’s still relevant as unions continue to have a strong grip on the Labor Party. And with a possible impending recession in the US that would inevitably effect the Australian economy, a Rudd victory in the coming election will bring the unions exercising their pernicious behind the times influence on the front benches of a Labor government. And hence exacerbate the peril of the economy of the country in conditions of recession. Lest we forget, it was in the UK in the mid-sixties under Labor governments that ‘trade-union-led “wage push” was the driving force behind inflation and subsequent breakdown of Keynesian policy’. Richard Kahn, one of the closest disciples of Keynes, when he was asked about this breakdown of Keynesian policy, he answered, ‘we never thought the leaders of the trade unions could behave so stupidly’. This stupidity was coined at the time in the term of stagflation, the proud creation of the unions. And this doltishness of the unions is alive and well in our times as it’s still fueled by the false Marxist doctrine of class struggle. This is the danger that trade unions could inflict to the Australian economy under a Rudd government. As for Rudd’s “education revolution” by providing students with laptops, the mountain has brought forth a mouse. Australia is already among the top nations that provides computers to its students. But on the quintessence of education revolution which has to deal with its human capital, i.e., its teachers, who have to be selected on merit and ability and on their teaching methods, two burning issues on which the education unions will not budge, Rudd remains silent. He also claims that his government will be a government of “fresh ideas and new leadership”. But after his lustful embrace of me tooism of some major liberal policies during the electoral campaign, Rudd pellucidly reveals that his government will not be a government of “new leadership” but a government of mimicry.

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The ascendancy of the Labor Party to the treasury benches in Victoria, has churned in its wake a billow of waves of industrial action by an amalgam of union power that threatens to shipwreck the economic vibrancy of the state. The outcome of such fatuous action by the unions will be to induce a flight of investment capital from Victoria to other states, as current and would-be employers of this state would feel too insecure to invest in an environment of industrial turmoil. This is especially so when the Labor government and its leader Steve Bracks are perceived to be irresolute and too weak-kneed to control and rein in this outdated aggression and belligerence of the unions against employers.

The excessive and irrational demands of the unions for a thirty-six hour working week and a 24 percent increase in wages, which if they were successful in obtaining initially in the construction industry and their inevitable flow into some other industries, would have the ineluctable result of throwing thousands of workers among the ranks of the unemployed. This would be a tragic repetition of what happened in the metal industry in the late 80s as a result of excessive union claims, under the then Federal Secretary of the Metal Trades Union, George Campbell—a political stallion of the Left and presently a Labor Senator who is going to be replaced by another stalwart left-winger Doug Cameron who has indisputable credentials of being in the past a real “communist under the bed”—whom the Treasurer Paul Keating accused of having a necklace of 100,000 dismissed metal workers around his neck.

It’s obvious that the unions are afflicted by an innate inability to learn from their past sloppy errors. And like a recurring malady they are bound to contaminate the economy of the country with the calamitous mistakes of the past. The consequences of a repeated mistake, however, are more tragic than the consequences of an initial one and therefore carry a greater responsibility. An action that is performed for the first time is experimental in regard to its consequences, as no one, without the gifts of Tiresias, can predict or foresee whether its results will be benign or malign. (Not that the unions could be excused for their first error. There was ample evidence of a global scale at the time, and enough forewarnings by eminent economists, that excessive union claims within the confines of global competition would inexorably lead to the flight of capital from regions these claims were impacting upon, and hence to unemployment.) But an action that is repeated deliberately and wantonly in spite of knowledge of its harmful effects in the past is intellectually malevolent and morally culpable.

Whose Culpability is Greater the Union’s or the Government’s

Two questions therefore arise. Is the intelligence of unions commensurate with their powers? Or is it the case that union power is more like the wings of an eagle attached to a pigeon head? If the answer to the second question is affirmative, then one further question is posed, i.e., why then was the political wing of the Labor Party, which is now in government and having the expertise of knowing better about the dire economic effects of industrial unrest to the country nonetheless was unwilling to intervene promptly and decisively to block the irrational and pernicious claims of its industrial wing, which as a government of all Victorians—Premier Brack’s slogan—was committed in doing? Furthermore, why was the government’s immediate reaction to blame the Federal government’s industrial legislation for the ongoing industrial unrest instead of doing something that would have stifled the industrial dispute in its initial stages, for which it had prior knowledge, and using the subterfuge of an excuse that it was constrained by the legislation and could do nothing effective toward its resolution? Both the deputy leader of the government John Twaites and the Minister of Industrial Relations Monica Gould, used this feeble argument, when in fact with the return of the Premier from Davos the latter forced the union involved in the dispute of the Yallourn power station to return back to work by imposing hefty fines upon its members, hence demonstrating that the government had the power to do something effective to resolve the dispute? Wasn’t it rather, the attempt to shift the blame to the federal legislation, a poor ruse, indeed, a camouflage, to cover its lack of will to intervene timely and decisively and derail the union from its “crashing” course? Yet, the belated action was effective, even if it was done halfheartedly. But what other alternative the government had, at the end of its honeymoon with the electorate, other than to send the stalled fire engines out to extinguish the full blown fire, if it was not to be seen, and impugned, in the electorates eyes, as politically effete and incompetent?

This is a basic characteristic, however, and an irreversible syndrome of Labor governments. To intervene in industrial disputes only when political necessity dictates, i.e., only when these disputes have reached a high point with the potential of harming the economy, and hence would be politically damaging. For organizational and ideological reasons Labor governments are not prone to intervene in the wrangles of their comrade-in-arms with employers, but do so only as a last resort.

This general inaction of Labor governments in industrial disputes is a result first, of a common ideology shared with the unions whose core emanates from the principles of socialism, and secondly, from its constitutional organizational structures that tie the political and industrial wings of the Party into a powerful body and into a compact of consensus that determines the functions of each wing. In conference after conference of the Party, the common and often repeated refrain is that Labor occupies the treasury benches only for the purpose of implementing policies which are discussed and ratified in state and federal conferences in whose conception the unions and its sundry representatives, mainly academics, have a major input. The union’s dominance is illustrated not only in the generation and formation of policies (Its architects generally are academics from the Left, whose intellectual frustration is at a boiling point because their ideas and policies cannot pass muster among other academic luminaries, but who do find a paradisiacal outlet for their “time-stopped” ideas, as well as an adulatory audience among their comrades in the unions, who normally cannot separate the wheat from the chaff of these ideas), but also on the conference floor as sixty percent of its delegates must be union representatives according to the Party’s constitution.

The larger and, especially, the more militant unions have such a firm grip in the election of delegates to Party forums, that even ministers and would-be premiers often cannot be elected to these meetings. Many ministers , therefore, who are unable to be elected to conferences on their own authority, resort to “begging” less militant unions to be placed in their delegations as constitutionally the unions have the authority to do so. Hence only as supplicants to the unions are ministers able to participate in conferences. For example, Jim Kennan, the Attorney General in the Cain Government, for many years was a delegate of the Clothing Trades Union. Likewise too, Steven Bracks, the current premier, was a delegate of the same union, who had taken Kennan’s place with the latter’s departure from politics. Other ministers who are not as fortunate to be union delegates attend conferences as visitors and observers without the right to move, or vote for, resolutions of the conference. Hence, ministers and many of their advisers are left out from the formulation and ratification of the Party’s policies. Such is the power and influence of unions in the organizational procedures of the Party, that often they cal “lock-out” important ministers who are not close to their ideological positions, from the highest policymaking bodies of the Party.

Moreover, the grip of the unions is extended to the pre-selection procedures of the candidates of the Party as well as in the choosing and changes of the parliamentary leadership, both in the state and federal domains. Who can forget for instance the telephone call that Paul Keating made, during his challenge of Bob Hawke, to Wally Curren, secretary of the Meat Workers Union asking him for his support in the coming challenge to Hawke for the leadership of the government? And Curren obliging, by forcing those MP’s from Victoria who owed their position in parliament to his patronage, to vote for Keating? This irritated Bob Hawke so much asking who Wally Curren was pretending thus ironically that he himself who had ousted and replaced Bill Hayden with union support was not cognizant of the influence trade union leaders have in pre-selections. As for the branches of the Party they play a superficial role in the pre-selection of candidates as they too in turn are influenced in their decisions by the organizational power of the unions.

Labor Politicians at the Mercy of Unions

Being therefore at the mercy of unions for their parliamentary positions and for the buttering of their bread, labor politicians, with some exceptions, are cast as toadies of the unions. Only the Federal Executive of the Party can intervene can intervene and save a ministerial or a backbencher’s scalp from the tomahawk of the unions. This occurred when John Halpenny, the Secretary of the Trades Hall Council in Victoria. were placed in the number one position on the senate ticket, with massive union support, in the 1988 federal election, relegating the leader of the Senate, John Button, to the second position. And in the election following the one in 1988, some of the left-wing unions were deliberating whether or not to place Gareth Evans, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the second position on the senate ticket. Only some sober heads at the last moment saved the glitterati Minister from the rusty and blood-stained tomahawk of the unions and from posthumous obloquy. (But the power of the Federal Executive is limited, as is illustrated in the present coming election of 2007 in the seat of Coreo, where the current seating member, Gavin O’Connor, is replaced by an assistant secretary of the ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions), against the wishes of the Executive.)

It’s for all the above reasons, this congeniality of interests between Labor governments and unions that prevents the former from acting timely and decisively in industrial disputes. And even when they do as a last resort they cannot be impartial in their involvement. The Brack government being captive to the unions has to cater to the latter’s voracious appetite on a number of issues: On the restoration of common law damages for injured workers, which has already being done by passing the relevant legislation in parliament, on the restitution of industrial policy back to the State Government, so the latter can abolish the industrial contracts of the Federal Government, whose aim is to eliminate union dominance in industry negotiations, and to replace them with collective bargaining, hence restoring union coercion and thuggery during negotiations with employers. On these issues and on many others, the Labor government is hamstrung by union power. Whether the former will be able to deliver on these issues will depend on the political climate of the day and on the degree of resonance such a delivery will have upon the electorate.

Steve Brack’s therefore, like a trapeze artist, has to walk on a tight rope whose one end is held by the unions and the other by the community, and perform his balancing act. While gratifying the union claims, with potentially destructive consequences to the economy of the State, at the same time he has to keep its economic robustness, inherited from his liberal predecessor, Jeff Kennet, intact, hence erasing any fears or consternations the community might have about the new industrial course of his government.

It’s with this purpose in mind to win the confidence of Victorians and of some naïve employers that Steve Bracks lately set up a new stage with an old play. His government lacking any originality or lateral thinking in policymaking ransacked the ram shackled spider web storehouse of past Labor policies to bring out the nostrums of “old age”. The summit of “Growing Victoria Together”, chaired by that scion of Labor power, Bob Hawke, was such a nostrum. Imbibing a strong dose of self-deception, Bracks was hopeful that by attracting some old and new celebrities from the industrial club and from business to the summit the public would be hoodwinked and believe that something substantial would come from the coupling of these celebrities. What in fact happened, was that each spokesperson of this divided house of unions and employers, voiced plaintively their complaints and grievances against each other with the result that they were not able to reach an agreement as to how and by what prudent set of actions, they would carry out the growth of Victoria. The rhetorical statement at the end of the summit, spun by the golden threads of the cerebral and literary qualities of Bob Hawke and his wife, respectively, could hardly hide the practical hollowness of the summit. What the latter did was to set up a number of committees to look at a number of issues. Such as education and training, investment in training, industrial relations, health and wellbeing indicators to measure performance in meeting social goals, infrastructure, the impact of payroll tax on job and wealth creation , and the audit of government services in country communities. It also set up an advisory body to strengthen community input, oblivious of the fact, that while the latter is important it is not a substitute for political leadership. Forgetful also of the fact that the achievement of this laudable “prospectus”, is absolutely dependent on calm industrial relations. And therefore cannot be achieved while the agitated firebrand steam of the unions continues unabated.

Hence, the mountain (the summit) has brought forth a mouse which is at the mercy of the cat’s paws, the unions. Furthermore, as so many of the issues are to be shoved to committees, whose members are deeply divided on the central issue of industrial relations, they are inevitably going to be dealt with in a banal hackneyed manner, since their members will be unable to reach a mutual agreement on the key issue of industrial relations. Hence the summit’s “debris-deliberations” will be proven to be a barren exercise.

The Bracks’ government by its farcical and enervating stand toward the unions and by its populist stand toward the public threatens to throw Victoria into the doldrums as well as empty the coffers of the treasury. This is not a government of substance but a government of images—the images of a dead past. But funeral rites for dead images can be very expensive to the general community, both in terms of tax increases and unemployment.

In view of the ruinous policies of Syriza, and its completely inept negotiations with the European Union, that since its advent into power two and a half years ago is economically, and politically destroying the country, our two economists, Yanis Varoufakis and James Galbraith, who were so vocal is supporting the Marxist party of Syriza, are presently no longer unanimous in their stand toward it. While Varoufakis is a vehement opponent against Syriza and pours profuse vitriol over its leadership, Galbraith, remains totally numb and tuned out. It is for the above reasons that I’m republishing this article that was written four years ago. I hope the readers of this blog will find it of some interest.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair, /Hover through the fog and filthy air(Witches of Macbeth chanting their cursing ditty)

ByCon George-Kotzabasis— July 04, 2013

In their article published in the New York Times on June 23, under the title “Only the Left Can Save Greece”, the two politically ‘pinkish’ economists teaching at the University of Texas at Austin, James Galbraith (the son of the famous John Galbraith) and Yanis Varoufakis, argue that neither America nor Europe should fear an ascension to power of the Left wing party of Syriza in Greece on the contrary, they should applaud it, as a government of the left would reverse the defective policies of the European Union that have been so destructive to the Greek polity and to its people as well as to many other European countries.

The two economists were shocked at the closure of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) and denounced the Samaras government for its authoritarian and undemocratic action, of depriving Greeks of a public service of information and entertainment that was invaluable to them. The government however closed the public broadcaster temporarily and planned to replace this cesspool of administrative corruption, opacity, and cronyism, for which each Greek household had to pay a levy of 50 Euros per year, with a new public broadcaster not run by the government but by personnel chosen on meritocratic criteria and professionalism that would upgrade the service provided to Greek viewers and at a cheaper price. Galbraith and Varoufakis, in their support of this corrupt and inefficiently run public entity and demand of its reopening, found a kindred political ally in the leader of the Marxist party of Syriza, Alexis Tsipras, who had committed himself to re-open with all its personnel intact if he became prime minister. Tsipras’ crocodile tears for the public broadcaster, which in the recent past had condemned as being the mouthpiece of the extreme right, exposed his blatant political opportunism in this U-turn from hate to love for ERT. But they found him also to be an invaluable ally to their economic proposals of how to lift Greece out of the crisis. .

Galbraith’s and Varoufakis’ solution to the crisis springs from the growing of a hundred blooming flowers in the luxuriantly prodigal Keynesian garden. Their package of Keynesian remedies consist of “a kind of European equivalent of America’s post-crisis Troubled Asset Relief program; an investment and job program; and a European initiative to meet the social and human crisis by strengthening unemployment insurance, basic pensions, deposit insurance, and the expansion of core public institutions like education and health.” Notice, that all of these remedies are to be financed by government and taxes from private enterprises. How then government can finance all these things when its coffers are empty and depend on European loans to pay for primal services such as schools, hospitals, and public servants, and when private enterprise has no incentive to function or remain in an unstructured economy that has been for many years inimical to it? And the two economists do not make a pip about the necessity of private foreign and domestic investments that are the only economically sustainable and viable investments that can initiate growth and economic development that are the sine qua non that will pull Greece out of the crisis. And that these investments can only be made under the incentive of structural economic reforms that are favorable to private enterprise, and strict fiscal policies that perforce can only be accomplished by hard measures which are inevitably painful to the general populace.

Since neither the political color nor the gray matter of Galbraith and Varoufakis were able to convince serious politicians and economists in the Euro zone, or Greece, of the correctness of their Keynesian mirage as a solvent to the European and Greek crisis, they found in the fiasco leadership of Syriza, of Tsipras, the intellectual salvation of their by now withered flowers of their Keynesian remedy. (This speaks volumes about the value of their proposals in that they found their support and cerebral salvation in the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Greek left.) Tsipras bereft of any tenable economic policies, and rationalizing this vacuity in policy making by populist rhetorical denunciations of the policies of the Samaras government, eagerly embraced the policies of Galbraith and Varoufakis, which ideologically are cognate to his own as a ne plus ultra government interventionist himself, thus giving to his own policies some sort of academic prestige from this ‘south of the border’ economists that he is unable to get from more serious experts in the profession. (But beggars cannot choose.)

Indeed, the policies of Tsipras have their source in a variegated coterie of Marxists getting their inspiration from the flashing pan of Marxism, as the rising sun of the latter has long ago disappeared from the astral constellation of the universe, never to rise again. Tsipras, as a true believer of the great man, Karl Marx, attended the Marxist organised Subversive Festival of Zagreb in Croatia last March, which was likewise attended by both Galbraith and Varoufakis. Indeed, the former announced with pride his attendance of the Festival, in a lecture he gave to socialists in the German Parliament last week, where the gladiators of the great imperator Karl Marx had gathered together from all over the world and rushed into the arena of the Amphitheatre of Zagreb, with nets in one hand and swords in the other, to fight and slay the wild animals of capitalism, which their predecessors in the socialist camp, even better armed with technological weapons, had failed to slay. Moreover, Tsipras was an aficionado of Chavez and had visited Venezuela last year with the hope of getting financial help from its president with an implied commitment of making Greece a protectorate of Venezuela, if not the European Venezuela. And yet Galbraith and Varoufakis in their political naiveté write in their article in the New York Times that the Americans have nothing to fear from a Syriza government.

Galbraith and Varoufakis, like the witches of Macbeth cursing the Samaras’ government as foul, undemocratic and authoritarian, slavishly implementing the dictates of the European Union, and as economically incompetent, are predicting its downfall while stirring the pot of their quackish remedies which nobody will ‘buy’ other than Tsipras. Meanwhile, Samaras wisely, assiduously, and decisively is transforming Greece within the short span of one year by an unprecedented series of structural reforms that are increasing competition–Greece is in the 22 position internationally for the first time–reducing the bureaucracy, especially its inefficient part that was an obstacle to investments, and planning to make it more efficient on meritocratic standards, changing the economic milieu by making it friendly to business and investments, and leashing the arbitrary and ruinous power of unions which for many years had prevented foreign investments in the country. Moreover by his virtuoso performance in the negotiations with the European Union and the IMF, Samaras has blunted some of the austerity measures that have been a major factor in obstructing the re-igniting of the economy and artfully polishing these measures that will put Greece on the track of development. He was able to convince the leaders of the EU to provide Greece with extra funds for employment programs that will materialize by the beginning of 2014, more resources from the European Bank of Investments so they can be ploughed into small and medium sized businesses. He has started building Autobahns that have created 25,000 new jobs and he has enticed the economically hard thinking Chinese government to invest 350,000 million Euros in the port of Piraeus thus making it the entreport of commerce between south-east Asia and Europe. ( The European Council announced that the port of Piraeus will be named as the capital port of Europe for 2015.) Also the Chinese are interested in making more investments in the infrastructure of the country, especially in its railway network by which they will transport their goods into Europe. But the most important and greatest achievement of the Samaras’ government up to this moment has been the building, through Greece, of the conduit by the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) that will convey natural gas from Azerbaijan to the heart of Europe. TAP will invest the huge amount of 1.5 billion in Greece and will generate 12,000 jobs by 2014 in the country. This, according to one authority in the energy industry, has been the personal accomplishment of Samaras who in his visit of Azerbaijan and meeting with the Prime Minister of the country three weeks ago, convinced the latter that it would be more efficient and economically cheaper to build the conduit through Greece instead of through Bulgaria and Romania, a project which the international consortium backing it was favorable to win, and lost it only, with the intervention of Samaras. Furthermore, this enormous investment, behind which one of its investors is the global gigantic company BHPBilliton, engenders confidence to other investors that Greece is about to pull itself out of the crisis, and hence, encourages and attracts more investments into the country and thus will increase employment which is one of the major challenges of the government.

The government under the statesmanship of Samaras is determined to pull Greece out of the crisis and not to squander the sacrifices Greeks had to make for the economic, political, and cultural Renaissance of the country. The great, fair achievements of the Samaras government, in an unprecedented short span of time, are depicted and cursed as foulby the two Marxistoid economists, James Galbraith and Yannis Varoufakis. Ignominy, loss of intellectual honor, is of no concern to them.

In view of the prevention of terrorists attacks targeting main public centres in Melbourne during Christmas, I’m publishing the following address that was delivered by me, at the private chambers of Sir Harry Gibbs (former Chief Justice of The High Court of Australia) on December 14, 2002, who as Chairman of The Samuel Griffith Society presided over its annual general meeting.

Mr. President,

I’m aware that the issue I’m raising is not directly related to the charter of our society. But because our way of life, our values and the lives of our citizens are under threat by a deadly network of fanatic terrorists, and because these values are written and reflected in the Australian Constitution, our society as a defender of the latter, cannot avoid from being embroiled in this war against terrorism and its state sponsors.

As in all wars, beyond the human and material mobilization of a nation, the moral and spiritual mobilization of its people is just as important, if not more important. I strongly believe that in the latter mobilization, our society can play a significant and important role.

Recently, there has been a cravenly and ignominious attempt to disarm the country of its strength from effectively confronting this terrorist threat. A secular and sacred chorus have sung an ode in praise of disloyalty and pusillanimity, as the best means of defence against terrorism. Four former prime ministers (Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and Keating) a Governor General (Bill Hayden) and a motley of religious prelates, disseminated their nihilistic wisdom to the people of this country, as to whether Australia should support the United States in a war against Iraq. Their pronounciamento of No to War, was remarkable for its poverty of thought, for its lack of historical insight, and for its richness in levity. In the latter case this was demonstrated bizarrely by Mr. Keating, who in a tongue-in-cheek interview on channel 10, stated that while we should keep our important alliance with the USA, we should not support the latter in its war against Iraq. In his own inimitable words, he remarked, that a “clever nation—read a clever government under his premiership—could have its-own-cake-and-it eat—too.” Such a proposition is of course based on the assumption that the other party, in this case the USA government, is so stupid, that it would be willing to fall victim to Mr. Keating’s con-man diplomacy and would gratify his penchant of having his cake-and-eating-too.

But despite the lack of seriousness and frivolity of these ideas, propagated by this prominent group of court-jesters, it would a mistake to underestimate the great damage these ideas would make on the moral fibre and on the fighting spirit of the country. It is for this reason that this sophistry of these intellectual usurpers, must be countered and exposed for its spiritual and moral bankruptcy. It would be a historical and political folly to allow these political and religious romantics, the nipple-fed intellectuals of academe, and the populist media, to monopolise, dominate, and debase the debate on the war against terrorism. I believe that our society can play a pivotal role in counter-balancing this monopoly and exposing the brittleness of the arguments of this caricature of statesmanship.

Mr. President, I’m aware of the paucity of the material resources of our society. But this should not be a reason why the wealth of its intellect, imagination, and moral mettle, should lay fallow in these critical times.

RCMoya, after your excellent and resplendent analysis I feel, if I captiously quibble about few points, like a bat squeaking in the dark. First, inequality might have “continued its forward march” but I would argue that it did so on a higher level of general economic prosperity in America following the up till now unassailable historical paradigm of capitalism and free markets that has made the poor ‘richer’ in relative terms, as Amartya Sen has contended.

Secondly, America’s “hectoring and ignoring” has its counterpart in Europe and in other continents whose countries were strong allies of the US during the Cold War but with the collapse of the Soviet Union have reappropriated their independence both geopolitically and culturally and expressing this in their own hectoring and ignoring against America, thus continuing the irreversible law of the political and cultural competition of nation-states.

Thirdly, I would argue that as long as America continues to be the centripetal force attracting the “best and the brightest” to its shores and not stifling the Schumpeterian spirit of entrepreneurship and “creative destruction”, it will be able to rise again even from the ashes of a comatose state and will continue to be in the foreseeable future the paramount power in world affairs.

And fourthly, the rejection by Congress of the funding plan that would have a better chance than none to prevent the economy from collapsing was inevitable in the present political climate where reason cannot compete with populist emotionalism and when a swirl of weak politicians, like Nancy Pelosi, and, indeed, Barak Obama, are its ‘slaves’. Only by cleaning out these wimpish politicians from positions of power will the political narrative reassert its legitimacy.

Thanks for the points. Interesting thoughts.First, I’d be careful in praising the ‘unassailable historical paradigm’ of capitalism and free markets. That has never really been the case elsewhere in world–including Japan and Europe, and definitely not in the third world–and yet that has not stopped those countries from reaping the benefits of a globalised economy. Simply put, capitalism may have been successful–it is–but it is not the case that completely ‘free markets’ have played a central role in the enrichment of advanced economies. That was probably the result of a misleading analysis (an altogether too cheery one at that) of Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’–which has monumentally failed more than once since the 1980s.

Second, Europe may have been an American vassal in the early parts of the Cold War–and yet still managed to create economic structures that were different from the United States. Britain, France and Germany have had distinct economic approaches–and that’s to say nothing of more interventionist Scandinavia–and in all of these countries (save for the UK) the post-war years were considered an extraordinary period of growth.You’re probably right that we’re now re-entering a period of political and cultural competition between states. I think this is a good thing, though it’ll take some time for Europeans to get used to the idea of a weaker America.Your third point is probably concedable…though only to a point. The ‘best and the brightest’ only go to America because of its perceived economic vitality. Take that away and there’d be less of a reason to head over. Also, buying into the ‘Americans are so entrepreneurial’ myth is rather problematic–because some European states, for example, have a greater slice of the economic pie coming from small and medium-sized business owners than America, land of the corporate shopper, has. Maybe it’s the contrary situation at present: maybe Europeans have ‘stifled’ entrepreneurialism here…and in any case releasing it would help, not hurt it.

I’d warn that nothing lasts forever, that nothing is ever guaranteed; if America’s financial system DOES go under even further America’s future role as a power would be substantially jeopardised.Your last point starts off well…until you reveal your partisanship. The Democrats certainly don’t have a monopoly on forceful politicking, to their detriment. I would argue that their greatest weakness is in their ‘social democracy light’-style of policies.Yet, all the perceived ‘strength’ in the world hasn’t made the belligerence of the Reagan-Bush-Republican era any more palatable to the world–and, in fact, has in the longer-term probably weakened America considerably.Strength alone cannot substitute for pragmatism, intelligence and good policy.

Kotzabasis says

OK, but you have to answer the intruding historical questions under what economic system Japan and Europe developed and which was the motor of the globalised economy? One would be silly to say that capitalism is an ‘absolute monarch’ and free markets are the ‘Sun King’ of economic development. But we are talking here about basics and not the sometimes necessary state intervention which has been merely, if you allow me to use this metaphor, a changing of an occasional punctured wheel (excepting the present situation) of an omnibus that has been running quite well for a long time on all rough terrains.

And you have to be consistent with your own logic, if you accept the reality of a globalized economy, as you do, which was the offspring of a long gestation starting in the 1980s, how can you imply at the same time that this globalized economy was begotten by the “monumental” failure of the 1980s? The question of Europe is what cemented more the “economic structures” of Europe. Was it the working spirit of capitalism or the working spirit of socialism? And if a mixture of both is your obvious answer, I’ve to remind you that mixtures are not equal and on the scales of economic development capitalism continues to ‘tilt the scales’ in its own favour contra socialism, and that also applied to your economic model in Europe. Perceptions do not have a long life and for more than a hundred years now America continues to attract the best and the brightest on its shores. So its economic vitality must have more solid grounds than perceptions. Again you are inconsistent with your own logic; if the best and the brightest are in America, as you concede, then your “Americans are so entrepreneurial” cannot be a “myth”.

Needless to say “nothing lasts forever and… ever guaranteed” since man’s fate is to live and cope in a world of uncertainty.Lastly, I’m surprised that you consider my judgments on person’s characters, in this case of Pelosi and Obama, and on political parties as being partisan. Under your criterion only a person who made no judgments would be absolutely impartial. The facts are that the Democrats have cut their sails to the populist wind and are running their campaign on the emotional hate and animadversions many Americans have for the Bush administration and by association the Republicans. “Pragmatism, intelligence and good policy are the offspring of strong genes.

The following was my short contribution to a Seminar held in the Law School of Melbourne University, on July 28, 2016, with the theme “The Jihadist Challenge to International Law…,” whose main speakers were two professors of International law of Harvard and Yale Universities respectively.

The Jihadist challenge to the ‘mountain’ of International Law must not give birth to a ‘mouse’ that will be at the mercy of the cat’s paw, of humanitarian lawyers. It must be taken off their gentle hands and must be handled by judicious and realist legislators, who are fully aware that this is no mere challenge to International Law but an existential threat to Western civilization. Lawgivers therefore must enact the harsh laws that will protect this civilization.

If the Jihadists are prepared to fight with the laws of the jungle, then they must also be prepared to suffer the whole hog of these laws. They must not expect that they will be protected by the humane laws of the West.

Finally, it is a great fallacy to believe that non-intervention or non-resistance by the West will touch the souls of these fanatics. On the contrary, it will strengthen their belief that the West is weak and they will attack it more ferociously and murderously. And indeed, in their wild chase of the chimerical seventy-two virgins they will not hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction against the West.